Posted on 05/29/2005 9:34:25 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Sunday May 29, 2005
Man invents steering wheel sensor to test skin for alcohol consumption
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) A Florida man's new patent could keep drunk drivers stuck in park.
54-year-old inventor Dennis Bellehumeur's 600-dollar skin sensor can be installed in a steering wheel or gloves to determine alcohol consumption.
Bellehumeur's son suffered brain damage as a teenager when he crashed into a utility pole while driving drunk. Bellehumeur wants the sensor to become a standard feature on new vehicles.
But a research psychologist for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says automakers may find it too costly.
So if a drunk man can don some gloves, he's beat the device?
I've never driven drunk in my life. Why should I pay more for a car with this new device?
The solution is simple: get caught driving drunk, pay a $2500 fine and lose your license for a year. Get caught driving on a revoked license, spend a year in jail. Kill someone by driving drunk, spend 12-15 years in prison for negigent homicide.
End of problem.
I wonder if this was the same guy who invented the washing machine that can't be operated by the same person on consecutive wash cycles?
losrer
I agree. This is a presumed guilty until proven innocent scenario. Theny you can blame the sensor.
Perhaps they should use them on city busses or passenger planes.
I wonder if this article will be posted as many times as the article about Brit doctors wanting to ban kitchen knives?
Probably much more likely than either Giacomo or Afleet Alex win the Belmont Stakes.
Or airliners :
ANA punishes boozing flight crew
Eight flight crew members and five of their bosses have been punished after most of them were boozing and partying past the time permitted before they were supposed to be on a domestic flight from Akita to Tokyo, All Nippon Airways said.
All 13 were given a reprimand of some sort, with the eight actually drinking -- the flight captain, a co-pilot, a co-pilot trainee and five flight attendants -- served with written warnings. The five others -- the bosses of the crewmembers -- were verbally reprimanded.
ANA regulations forbid flight crew members from drinking within 12 hours of their duties, but the group partied on until just 11 hours before the flight.
Crew supposed to work in the cockpit for the flight were replaced by other staff who drove up from Tokyo to Akita, but the cabin crew stayed on.
"They hadn't drunk enough to affect their work performance," an ANA spokesman said, referring to the flight attendants.
ANA said the flight crew finished work at just before 2 p.m. on May 4 and were due to return to Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a flight leaving Akita at 7:50 a.m. the following day.
But they started drinking at about 6 p.m. on May 4, continuing until about 9:30 p.m.
The flight captain drank two large jugs of beer and two flasks of sake. Together, the eight members of the flight crew went through two bottles of wine and more than one dozen jugs of beer.
When the captain returned to his hotel, he realized they had been drinking past the time permitted by company regulations. Early on the morning of May 5, he notified ANA staff in Tokyo and the replacement crew were sent up.
Punishments were issued at various times from May 17 to May 20 and announced publicly on Friday. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, May 28, 2005)
Man invents steering wheel sensor to test skin for alcohol consumption...."Man invents gloves to overide sensor to test skin for alcohol consumption".
And don't clean the wheel with anything that might have alchohol in it......
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